Aharon’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, each took his pan, put fire in them, and placed incense upon it, and they brought before G-d foreign fire, which He had not commanded them. Fire went forth from before G-d and consumed them, and they died before G-d.
No Instructions Necessary
The deaths of Nadav and Avihu were not a punishment for their actions, according to one explanation suggested by the Ohr Hachaim. Rather, they died by “Divine kiss,” in a manner akin to the deaths of Moshe and Aharon—i.e., they sensed G-d’s closeness to the point that their souls expired from sheer ecstasy.
According to this interpretation, the Torah’s characterization of the incense offered by Nadav and Avihu as “foreign fire, which He had not commanded them” must be understood not as criticism of their offering, but as praise of its virtue. It is called “foreign” because it wholly surpassed the fixed service in the Mishkan, for unlike the sacrifices that Aharon offered upon G-d’s explicit command, Nadav and Avihu offered their incense without requiring instruction. Their union with G-d was so deep and so much a part of them that they instinctively sensed G-d’s desire and acted accordingly.
This explains why, after Aharon’s sons’ deaths, Moshe told him, “This is what G-d has said, ‘I will be sanctified through those near to Me.’” Based on the Midrash, Rashi explains that Moshe said to Aharon, “I knew that this House was to be sanctified through G-d’s beloved ones, but I thought it would be either through me or through you. Now I see that they were greater than both of us!”
Nadav and Avihu, through their profound union with G-d, elicited a Divine response even greater than the G-dly revelation elicited by the sacrifices that Moshe and Aharon offered. Their instinctive worship of G-d, without requiring instruction, caused “the House to be—truly and inherently—sanctified.”
—Likkutei Sichos, vol. 32, pp. 98–102
